Built Environment

Surely all geologists should have their photograph taken in Coprolite Street, Ipswich! Elsewhere our ancestors were masters of flint in fine churches such as Lavenham and Blythburgh.

Tacket Street Ipswich

Kentish Ragstone (a sandstone) comes from the Medway valley area but has been imported for the walls of several Suffolk churches and for making sea walls.

Tavern Street IpswichThe white limestone is St John’s Travertine from Italy ; at the base of the building is Rustenberg Black Accord Gabbro, an igneous rock from South Africa. The Ipswich shop front has now been changed but as this business uses the same rocks all over the world, you may find these stones in other towns. You may also need a sense of humour in several languages for dealing with curious onlookers while you are studying the building stones.

Brandon Heritage Centre

Flint is apropriately used in this modern heritage centre. Find out more about building stones in Breckland from our new leaflet In Breckland with GeoSuffolk.

Bury St Edmunds Cathedral

Enhance your visit to Bury St Edmunds by downloading our special handwritten map of the geological highlights of 'God's Square' - the Abbey Gardens, the Cathedral, the Great Churchyard, and St Mary's Church. (The rock and brick store on the Cathedral map no longer exists; there is also a new extension to the cloisters using Ancaster Stone.)

Greyfriar's Priory in Dunwich

The Coralline Crag 'Rock Bed' was used as a building stone in some of Suffolk's Medieval buildings, as for example in the boundary wall of Greyfriar's Priory. This was repaired in 2013 by English Heritage and Suffolk County Council using Coralline Crag from a local quarry.

Everything listed in this section is publicly accessible or easily viewable and the huge variety means there is 'something for everyone'.

Geodiversity in Ipswich. Ipswich is well worth exploring for geological interest. The local Sarsen stones are great favourites. Some parks have unexpected seepages of ground water at the Red Crag/London Clay boundary – some are left in their natural state, others are gathered into ponds. The Museum’s collections are especially rich in local fossils, but also contain surprises such as Indian fossil mammals. A walk through the town centre will reveal a wealth of building stones and surely everyone should have their photograph taken in ‘Fossil Animal Dropping Street’ (Coprolite Street) – a reminder of the former artificial fertiliser industry. Take a look at our GeoIpswich leaflet.

Geodiversity in Mid-Suffolk. The River Gipping has cut a swathe through the Mid-Suffolk landscape, exposing a full range of Suffolk geological strata – Chalk, Tertiary deposits, Crag sands and glacial deposits. For well over a century it has been the scene of economic use of geology – Chalk for agriculture and cement, glacial boulder clay for cement, and sand and gravel for the construction industry. Gravel has been excavated from several geological horizons including valley-bottom sites now occupied by lakes. Smaller valleys often show characteristic solution and erosion features.

Geodiversity in St Edmundsbury. Chalk underlies the area, and old underground workings have been prone to collapse. Overlying glacial clay is seldom exposed but periglacial features are recorded from several localities, as are interglacial river deposits (not well exposed and mainly on private ground). Bury St Edmunds Cathedral is built of a fine selection of (non-local) limestones.